Dear Diary
by Bitcheesquared
Summary: Post 3x22 Her Diary has always been the one thing she has where she can tell the big and small truths. Funny how being a vampire doesn't change that. So she's going to record her final great truth, the one that begins with her death, because she knows now that sometimes the truth really does set you free. Rated M for future chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Dear Diary

They say that when you die your life flashes before your eyes.

Floating weightless in murky waters, trapped and drowning in a car beneath Wickery bridge for the second time in my life, I remember thinking about that and not caring a great deal either way.

I suppose it should have occurred to me that even thinking about such a strangely appt but utterly random subject was a little bit off, even for me, but at the time, watching Stefan pull Matt's unconscious body from the cab all I could feel was a kind of fatalistic peace about where this was ending.

Ironically, moments later as I gasped out my last breath memories did come, and I remember thinking Oh, and then I guess I died, because I stopped thinking at all.

I Don't know what happens when most people die but death for me contained no tunnels of light or fluffy white clouds and lost loved ones. I don't remember dreaming at all and to me no time passed between drowning in Matt's truck and waking up in the Mystic fall's Morgue.

Oh and BTW diary how ooky is that?, you'd think that the least they could have done after Meredith Fell informed them of her little attempt at "helping me" would be to allow me to wake up somewhere a little more welcoming than a morgue draw. Anyway I'm just saying... it was a little disturbing.

At least Stefan had the good sense to sit and not say too much when I first came gasping back to life. And let me tell you now, I was really surprised about the back to life thing, for all of about thirty seconds. Weirdly my next thought was that at least no one could blame Damon for this one. And of course, timing being everything it was at that moment Damon came barreling through the doors and It hit me that I was still a little deader than I would have liked.

Of course my meltdown ended up getting put on hold when Damon with his usual impulsive fury punched Stefan in the face hard enough to leave a Stefan sized dent in the door adjacent to mine.

During the following furor, he made it pretty clear that he was less than impressed with his little brothers actions in the waters beneath the bridge.

I have seldom seen Damon so blazingly angry at anyone, he is usually so cold and contemptuous when he's pissed, his emotions carefully controlled to give nothing away before he takes action, but in this instance he wasn't in control at all. And during the whole excruciating confrontation he didn't look at me even once.

When the shouting and punching was finally over and the two brothers stood face to face, I had time to think about how strange it was that I was more upset at the moment about a possible rift between the two of them than the fact that it was my being dead that had caused it. Of course it could of had something to do with the fact that I'd pretty much figured I'd end up either dead or a vampire sooner or later. After all there was only so many times a person could dodge a bullet, and hey, it seemed my dodging days were over. So I just stood there gripping the edge of the table I'd so recently woken up on and watched the two most important men in my life reach an understanding that would change things far more irrevocably than my becoming a vampire ever could.

And through it all Damon still wouldn't look at me.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

It wasn't until later, after Caroline had driven me to the boarding-house and held my hand while I drank the cup of AB neg that she had thoughtfully warmed, that it hit me. No one had even questioned if I wanted to complete my transition, they had just proceeded like there was no other option. And weirdly neither had I.

And it was weird. I knew intellectually that if asked only yesterday if it came down to this very choice I would have been horrified and at least torn by the thought of having to make that decision. But somehow waking up in the morgue knowing that I could choose to live as a vampire or die, it all seemed kind of... well, stupid was what sprang to mind.

Okay, so I'd never have kids and grow old with the man of my dreams. Yeah right. Who was I kidding, I was dating a freaking vampire and my best friends were another vampire and a witch. My only remaining family member could see ghosts and wore a ring that brought him back from death but might possibly drive him insane if he kept wearing it. The only other person I cared about was the brother of my boyfriend, also a vampire and every other non supernatural person I had ever cared about was either dead, or in Matts case in the hospital, all because of me.

I remembered that day Stefan and I had hiked to the top of the falls to watch a sunset, the whole conversation now seemed so melodramatic and pointless. What the hell had I been so scared of. That girl seemed so young when I looked back on that day.

I had lost Jenna that very night and my own birth father, John Gilbert, had sacrificed his life to keep me living that girls fantasy.

Damon had nearly died and Stefan had become an emotionless killing machine in order to save him. In the end even Ric had died because of me.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

If I had turned back when Damon fed me his blood, both Ric and Tyler might still be alive. Klaus would have had no doppelganger blood to create hybrids with in the first place and all the mess with originals most likely would have been different.

Esther probably would have stayed in her coffin for another thousand years and I knew somehow we would have found a way to help Alaric lose his less than pleasant alter ego.

All of those events were a direct consequence of my desire to stay human, all because one little girl didn't want to give up her childhood dreams.

God, I was disgusted with myself. Everyone had been so willing to sacrifice themselves on the altar of Elena's life and I just stood by and let them. How was I any better than Katherine, she at least had never pretended she was anything but self centred .

As Caroline led me up the stairs to one of the spare rooms and tucked me under the covers it occurred to me that there was something else that even now I was doing my best to avoid thinking about, something that I needed to face, that up until now I had deliberately refused to look at too closely.

Something that becoming a vampire had brought into focus in such a way that I could no longer avoid thinking about it.

Okay Diary this is it, time to get real.

Why, if I loved Stefan so much, had the thought of turning to be with him been so repugnant. Surely if I loved someone as much as I claimed to love him then sharing eternity with him should have been the logical next step.

Out of nowhere my mind had flashed back to Matt's truck and my conversation with Damon. No Matter what I feel for you I never unfell for him.

My God, I'd deliberately pushed Damon away, told him I had to let him go, for what? for a guy that I knew, even then with all the yearning and angst, that I didn't necessarily want forever with. So the big question was why didn't I want forever?

And while I was being honest with myself the feelings that I had for Damon, the ache of longing I'd felt that night in the hotel while waiting for Ghost Rose to reappear? those emotions were not the feelings of a girl totally in love with someone else. The kiss that we'd shared that night was beyond anything I'd ever shared with Stefan.

I'd been on the verge of giving myself to Damon with no thought of Stefan and our epic love and only now could I admit that if it wasn't for Jeremy's timely interruption I wasn't sure that I wouldn't have.

Lying there freaking out over my thoughts I'd taken an unneeded breath and decided to shelve the emotional angst, to try and look at things logically.

Why was I so frightened of the way Damon felt about me and why had I stubbornly clung to my relationship with Stefan when I'd realized that his feelings might not be as one sided as he thought.

Okay, so Damon had done horrible things to me and mine in the past but I had seen him change, not only with me but in his interactions with the other people in my life.

Not so long ago even the man who had come to town to kill him had taken comfort in his presence. Somehow the vampire who'd killed Ric's wife had ended up being the man who'd stayed to share his last hours.

And yes back when he'd saved Caroline and Tyler last year he'd done it for his own reasons, but saving me had been his reason and getting bitten by Tyler had only happened because of Caroline's plea to free him. The old Damon would have staked Caroline and ripped Tyler's heart out, problem solved. Instead Damon had very nearly died because of his feelings for me and the people I cared about.

And then there was Stefan and the badness that had happened because of that bite. He had also done some really terrible stuff, mostly to people I didn't know, and in Andie's case didn't like, but to be fair, Klaus's compulsion had been to blame for most of it and it was his love for Damon that had given Klaus his hold in the first place. Still, did the fact that I didn't know the majority of his victims personally make him any less guilty of the same crimes I was so quick to convict Damon for.

The old Stefan was gentle and kind, always respectful of my decisions and willing to stand by my side no matter my choices. But even after Klaus had freed him from his compulsion it was still a much darker Stefan that had returned to Mystic Falls, one hell bent on punishing Klaus. As much as I hated to admit it not even his love for me had deterred him from that particular goal. He'd been ruthless that night on the bridge, in a way that I doubted even Damon at his worst could have been been.

So why was it that Damon in all his psychotic glory still put me first, even if it wasn't what I wanted. While Stefan seemed more than willing to use me as a tool to assuage his own anger, anger that despite his supposed switch being flipped back to normal had been strong enough that his hurting me for his own agenda had not been a problem.

My head was aching with all of my thoughts. .. Both of them loved me and both of them were good men in their own way.

Both of them had a dark and bloody past and had in the time I'd known them done things that should have sent me screaming for the hills. So why was I willing to treat each of them so differently. How was what Stefan had done any different to Damon's actions. Did what Klaus had done to him really excuse the way he'd been acting and how he'd treated me since he'd come back to town.

Was I in love with a guy that no longer existed?

How could the man that killed Damon's whatever she was and frightened me nearly to death that night in his car be the same guy that had told me he'd love me forever. The same guy that only hours ago had done what I asked and let me drown while he saved Matt.

And what the hell did that mean?

Did Stefan let me die because it was what he knew I wanted or because he figured he was going to die and it really didn't matter either way. And more to the point where had that cynical thought come from and why was I even questioning his motives in the first place.

If I loved him as much as I thought I did then I was pretty sure that I shouldn't be even entertaining such macabre thoughts, let alone doubting his love.

The fact that I was a vampire was a pretty big indicator that something had not gone right with the whole Klaus thing. But Damon had seen Alaric kill him so why were any of Klaus's line still alive? And had Stefan known that as he was saving Matt?

Which again led me back to Damon.

I knew there was no way, his rant at the morgue proof enough, that he would have allowed me to die while he saved Matt, but knowing Damon he would have done his best, (Hello vampire strength), to save the both of us.

Okay yes, if it had come down to it, it would most likely have been me that he'd have chosen to save first but not before trying to get us both out of that wreck. Damon, self confessed emotionless Damon, would always save me and to him that equated to saving the people I love.

God I was so confused, my thoughts were ping-ponging all over the place.

So it was at that point that I wisely decided that maybe if I slept on it everything would be clearer in the morning.

I was settling down to do just that when Caroline came out of the bathroom and slipped into bed next to me. She smiled tentatively and when I smiled back she seemed to relax for the first time since we'd arrived at the house.

Opening her mouth to speak I'd reached for her hand and cut her off before she could begin.

I'd reassured her that everything was going to be fine and that I just needed to sleep, that I was fine with the way things had worked out and we could talk about the rest of it in the morning. I'd reminded her that I knew what to expect with the turning because of the last time and that we would have tomorrow to work out the details. As for the whole blood lust thing, well we would deal with that when I woke up, that I trusted her to make sure that I didn't hurt anyone I cared about and that I just needed sleep more than I needed anything else, even blood.

I'd been careful to not mention Tyler because I wasn't ready to deal with the pain that particular name was going to bring up, both hers and mine.

I could tell she was still worried that I was in denial but after the night I'd had I decided to ignore it because if I didn't get my brain to switch off I might have just thrown that hissy fit she was so worried about. Mollified but only partly reassured she'd wished me a good night and settled down to sleep.

Of course nothing ever goes like I'd planned so the fact that I'd found myself waking up only a few hours later with a couple of new memories shouldn't really have surprised me, and it didn't, It was my reaction to them that did


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

It seems that those earlier memories, that had been so rudely interrupted by my death, were determined to surface, the moment I'd fallen asleep there they were in full color and surround sound.

I was so going to stake Damon Salvatore!

He had not only compelled me twice, the bastard, he had done it in such a way and for reasons that I couldn't even blame him for, as much as I would have liked to.

He had told me he loved me then made me forget and I was so mad I could of strangled him.

Then there was the lovely little fact that apparently he had met me first.

And thanks to that stunning little piece of insight, I now knew which brother I had been more attracted to straight up.

Stefan may have made my heart flutter at our first meeting but Damon had made my everything flutter. Stefan's good looks had drawn me in and made me want to get to know him better, but Damon's dangerous beauty had made me want to run away with him and experience the life he said I craved.

Oh who the hell was I kidding, he'd smirked and did that eye thing and I wanted him in a way that I'd never felt for Matt or any other guy, fantasy's of Chase Crawford included.

Of course the most shattering thing about that particular memory wasn't that I had wanted Damon first or even the depth of my attraction. It was the fact that I knew without question that if he hadn't taken my memory of that night there would have been no way my life would have turned out the way it had.

They say first impressions count, and boy, in Damon's case it was beyond true.

I'd Told Damon only hours earlier that when I'd met Stefan he'd come into my life when I needed someone and that I had fallen for him instantly. But what if I had had someone else already in my life, or at least on my mind?

At that point I was pretty sure that if I had met Damon at the boarding house that second time with those memories intact it wouldn't have been the younger Salvatore brother that I would have been planning to see again. On the other hand I might not have been so quick to seek Stefan out at all if I'd known Damon was an option.

And that small truth had tilted my already rocky little world and ultimately led me back to the whole staking of the hot vampire thing.

Of course Caroline had chosen that moment to groan and roll over. Never a morning person even before the vampire thing, she'd muttered something unflattering that my new vampire hearing barely picked up before pushing the covers back with a glare.

After gesturing pointedly at the nearby alarm clock and inquiring if there was anything she could do to help me at five thirty four in the am she'd then made it clear that it would be her pleasure to get it, or even kill it, if that meant her getting a few more hours sleep.

I'd had to grin at the killing remark and for a minute I was sorely tempted, but in the end I'd settled for telling her I was hungry, mostly to distract her from her nosey and at times nearly supernatural best friend radar.

I so wasn't ready to tell Caroline about what I had barely begun to sort out in my own head and I knew that I needed to speak to Damon before I even mentioned the whole compelling thing to her.

Of course that meant the moment Caroline left the room I was up and standing outside of Damon's door. The idle thought that I could get used to the whole speed thing was a vague musing on my part as I'd opened his door and entered the room.

His words to me from that second time he'd compelled me were all I could think about as I closed the door.

I love you Elena, and it's because I love you, that I can't be selfish with you. It's why you can't know this. I don't deserve you, but my brother does. God I wish you didn't have to forget about this... but you do.

I'd remembered everything then, the look in his eyes, the soft sweet kiss on my forehead and that single tear that tracked down his cheek as he took the memory from me.

He'd come to my room and told me he was being selfish and then he'd done the one thing that proved he was anything but. And just for a moment as he stood there breaking his own heart I too had wished that things could have been different, that it had been Damon that I'd met first.

I'd remembered it all, and it broke my heart to realize that months later when Katherine had brought the cure for Tyler's bite and told me it was alright to love them both it had only made me more determined to lock away anything I felt for him.

I was so single-minded in my desire to prove that I was nothing like her that I shut down every inclination I had ever had about Damon being more to me than just Stefan's brother and my sometimes friend.

Her parting words had become my talisman against my feelings, those unwanted words my mantra against my own desires.

"I did" became the two words that defined the boundaries of my relationship with both brothers, because to love them both could be nothing less than unthinkable.

That night standing at the foot of Damon's bed watching him sleep I suddenly understood Katherine in a way that I had never wanted to.

Yes she had used them and played them off against each other, she had lied and hidden the fact that she was still alive, but now with hindsight I could finally see her reasons, even as twisted as they were.

She had loved them both. She'd left because she loved them and she'd let them think her dead for the same reason. And no matter what either of them believed I knew that Katherine Petrova had loved them both enough to stay away.

I also knew that Katherine knew as I did that deep down inside it was Damon that she would ultimately lose. That Damon's heart had been given to a girl that had never really existed and that in the end she would lose him when he finally met the real Katherine.

It was ironic really. The big bad vampire that killed on a whim had the heart and soul of good man while the noble steadfast younger brother contained within him a core of darkness that was blacker than anything his older brother could conceive of.

And Katherine had known it all along, it was the reason that she had chosen Stefan and scorned Damon's unwavering devotion.

Stefan could love her, his darkness would allow it but Damon once he truly knew the real Katherine? Not a hope in hell.

I'm not sure how long I stood there lost in my thoughts but knowing Damon's predatory instincts it wasn't long.

Sudden movement from the bed jolted me back to the present and my eyes had flown up to meet the cold blue gaze of Damon Salvatore.


	4. Chapter 4

He'd left the bed with vampire speed.

Midnight blue sheet draped around his hips, and didn't my brain have some salient comments to make about the whole I knew he'd sleep naked thing, he'd stood just out of touching range and stared at me with the blankest expression I had ever seen on his face.

I'll admit it threw me, I was so used to seeing everything he felt about me in those eyes that it just seemed more than wrong that he was looking at me like I was a stranger.

And then it all made sense.

Of course if I hadn't already guessed his first words clued me right in. It went something like this...

So now you know let's not drag this out. Yes he'd compelled me not once but twice and it didn't matter because that was the past and by this time tomorrow he'd be gone and Stefan and I could start our brand new happily ever after un-life together.

Did I mention that Damon does sarcasm and plain mean better than anyone? No. Well he does, and that night he was on a roll.

He'd then informed me in no uncertain terms that whatever he'd felt for me he'd "get over it" and that my dying and becoming a vampire, though not what he would have wanted for me, had at least shown him that I'd been right to pick Stefan.

Stefan would be back to being saint Stefan the bunny muncher before I knew it and the two of us would live happily ever after.

Stefan would make sure I stayed well within the acceptable lines, i.e. the whole not eating people thing.

Of course he'd had to add the aside... Unlike himself who had never been a colour within the margins type of guy.

He then quite calmly informed me that he was sure he'd be back to his old tricks within the week so it was just as well he wasn't going to be around to become a bad influence.

And then Diary... he had the gall to wish me a happy life.

Oh yeah and there was the ring thing as well.

Somewhere in his cheery little rant he'd moved over to his desk to rummage through a draw. When he turned back to face me he held a white velvet ring box in his hand.

Now I'm the first to admit this looked on the surface like every girls dream Right?

Yeah, not even close.

And okay when he opened the box and showed me the gorgeous antique sapphire and Lapis lazuli ring nestled within I'll admit my dead little heart did it's best to flutter.

Of course that only lasted as long as it took for him to explain that he'd had it made for me after the last time, just in case, and that he'd gotten a witch he knew to spell it for him.

He then went on to let me know that he hoped it made my life easier, at least until Stefan could get Bonnie to spell one that he'd picked out, as I'd undoubtedly prefer wearing one that came from my boyfriend rather than his brother.

He didn't even bother taking the ring out of the box to give it to me. he'd just grabbed my wrist sliding his hand over mine to pry open my clenched fist (he totally missed that clue) before placing the box in my hand and closing my fingers over it. And that was it for the usual personal space invasion, He'd immediately put the bed between him and myself.

Did I forget to mention along with the sarcastic and mean he was also pretty unstoppable at the whole on a roll thing as well.

Of course by then he was doing that self depreciating little smirk with the combination eye thing and the obligatory thinly veiled sexual innuendo. Anyway I sort of lost track for a moment or two when I got distracted by his mouth and my brains suggestion that it knew of a very good way to shut him up by keeping that very mobile mouth occupied in a much more interesting way.

Stupid traitorous brain.

Stupid compulsion giving jerk.

Now that I had those few minutes of my life back, it put even the way he annoyed me into a new light, and my traitorous brain again tried its best to convince me that this was yet another good reason that it was suddenly permissible to kiss that sneaky lying yummy mouth.

Anyway where was I? Oh yeah...

The whole Damon speechifying...

So skipping whole blah blah blah, and getting to the important bit. You are going to just love this Diary I know I did.

The cognizant point of the whole speech was that he and Stefan had agreed ( and boy was I going to have a word to Stefan about that) that the one that I didn't choose would do the honorable thing and leave town. And since I'd made my choice he was doing just that. Even went so far as to tell me that he was most likely going to leave the country entirely and that he'd send me a postcard from Paris.

So, I don't know if it was my new darker vampire nature or some unplumbed manipulative tendencies left over from my queen bee era but what I did next was low even by Care's standards.

And don't think she didn't rub that in when I eventually told her about it.

Yep Diary I did it, I looked him straight in the eye and did the whole tear well lip quiver thing, and even now I still don't regret it, not the expression or the words.

I am such a bitch, I opened my mouth and without even feeling the slightest bit guilty I used his very own words to make sure he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Yeah you guessed it, I used the but Damon, you promised you'd never leave me again thing. And it worked.

Don't get me wrong, I could see he was far from happy about it and when he'd had time to think he was probably gonna be pissed beyond belief.

Never mind the massive drunk that he'd most likely pull.

It was just that he'd really ticked me off, both him and my soon to be dead boyfriend . So sue me, I'd decided after his little speech he really had it coming and that he could just suck it up until I'd worked out how to fix the mess that the Salvatore brothers had made of my life.

So Yes, maybe I was being a little unfair, but honestly at that particular moment I couldn't find it in myself to give a fat rat's ass.

How dare they act like I was some bone to be fought over, a yummy treat that the winner got to have all to themselves. I'd figured that if they were going to act like a couple of dogs then no one could blame me for being a bitch.

And with that thought I turned, with what I'd hoped was a convincing muffled sob, and fled to the safety of Caroline's over protective guard.


	5. Chapter 5

When I got back to mine and Care's room it was all I could do not to either break down in hysterical laughter or throw something expensive at the wall. How dare they.

Caroline had obviously been on the verge of coming to look for me, so of course I had to explain where I'd been and that in turn led me to telling her the rest.

Gotta say one thing for Care, when she's in your corner she can be pretty focused.

Her focus unfortunately seemed to line up with my earlier thoughts and I'd spent the next fifteen minutes talking her out of doing something both painful and potentially humiliating to both brothers.

The side benefit of her anger was that it gave me time to calm my own temper down long enough to get my head around the fact that I had some thinking to do and some decisions to make, and not a lot of time to do either in.

I knew rationally that I should probably wait a few days at least, if only to let my new heightened vampire emotions settle and get a handle on the whole vampire thing. But those new much more amped up emotions were a lot easier to ignore in theory.

Beside which, something told me that guilting Damon into staying might only be a temporary fix. I'd seen his face and the expression in those emotive blue eyes.

Damon Salvatore had closed himself off. Worse he had given up.

His words might have been flippant and his tone trite but the emotion behind them wasn't. He truly believed that there was no place for him in my life and that the only thing left that he could give me was his absence.

As I'd paced the room while Caroline looked on with sympathy and far too much understanding, I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that if I didn't get my head straight I was going to end up waking up one day soon and find that Damon had disappeared off the face of the planet.

There would be no postcard from Paris or any other place.

And I was pretty sure that if I was to call his cell even ten minutes after he left town the only voice I'd hear would be a, this number is no longer in service message.

He would be gone and it might be a lot longer than a hundred and forty five years before I saw him again.

My heart had clenched in my chest at that thought and I'd whirled to face Caroline.

I couldn't seem to help myself, I couldn't hold what I was feeling in any more. All of a sudden the truths inside me that I had hidden for so long had seemed bigger than I could contain.

I didn't even have to speak, Caroline had just looked at me and said... I know sweetie I know. Then she'd asked me what I was going to do about it.

Of course I didn't' have an answer for her so I'd just looked away and done the deflection thing by asking my own question.

I'd asked her where Stefan was and she'd told me he had said he'd had things to do and that he'd be home later. She admitted he might have come in while we were asleep but she doubted it because she was pretty sure he would have at least been in to check on me before going to his room.

At the time that only served to piss me off even further. For someone who was supposed to love me he sure as hell had a funny way of showing it.

Here I was going through what would most likely be the most traumatic experience of my life and he'd left me alone with my best friend and his brother.

Yet another glaring example of the wrongness that had become us.

Or was he just so sure of our future together that he'd figured I'd want this time to myself to say goodbye to my old life and Damon with it.

I remember thinking at the time that life was so weird sometimes. less than twelve hours before I had made a choice to be with Stefan which had indirectly resulted in my death. And it was that death that had made me see what a colossal liar I was. Not only lying to Damon but myself.

I knew right then standing there staring at my best friend, a person who had changed from a shallow girl into a caring and emphatic woman, that just as her death had changed Caroline so had mine.

The words I'd said to Damon only hours ago had been the stupid words of a school girl caught up in the memories of an epic love that had been more about who I thought I was than who I'd actually been.

How could you fall for someone if you didn't know the full extent of that person. The boy I'd fallen for had been only one facet of the hundred and sixty odd year old vampire that was Stefan.

I'd told Damon I'd fallen for Stefan instantly but how was that possible when I hadn't known who he really was, what he really was.

Real love was a jigsaw puzzle of emotions that you gathered as you got to know the facets of the one you loved. Every character trait and every foible was a brick in the road on that journey to love. To love someone truly you had to know them, both the good and bad and still love them, despite everything.

And yes I did love Stefan, the Stefan that was gentle and kind, protective and honest, but that wasn't all he was.

There was a darkness in him that no matter how much I'd tried to ignore and pretend wasn't really him I knew now to be as real as those other parts that had made it so easy to love him.  
And with the new insight that death had brought me I'd realized that those were the parts of him I couldn't love, no matter how much I might have wanted to in the past.

Stefan might, with Damon's help, one day be able to find some sort of balance between the person he wanted to be and the ripper he tried to suppress but I could never ever love that ripper part, so how could I truly be in love with him.

I'd been in love with an illusion and it had taken until the night I'd woken up as a vampire to open my eyes.

And now that my eyes were open how could I have honestly believed that what I felt for Stefan back then could compare in any way to what I, right at that moment, felt for Damon.

Looking back there were so many reasons I had clung to my feelings for Stefan, but the worst of them and by far the biggest had been fear.

Scared to be like Katherine, scared of being consumed by something that I knew was far beyond anything I'd ever planned for my life.

Frightened of being the sort of person that would love someone that had seemed so capable of killing at a moment's whim. Which was sort of ironic considering I'd been sticking by a guy who'd been on a killing spree that had made Damon's look like child's play.

And finally my biggest and most hidden fear, the one that even now I still had no real answer to.

I was scared that he only loved me as a replacement, that when Damon looked at me he was seeing the girl he'd thought Katherine was all those years ago. I was frightened to death that one day he'd look at me and realize that it wasn't me he really loved. That he'd stop loving me and that it would kill me.

I Loved Damon Salvatore and I was more frightened of that than anything I'd ever experienced.

And it had hit me all of a sudden like a bolt right out of the blue. The reason I'd excepted my transition so calmly, the lack of moral quibbling or sadness over the life I'd have to give up. It had nothing to do with any of the reasons I would have come up with and everything to do with Damon and how much I really felt.

I wanted to be a vampire because Damon was a vampire and he was who I wanted to spend forever with.

And that Diary is when I finally excepted that I was irrevocably and totally in love with Damon Salvatore.

Now I just have to tell him.


	6. Chapter 6

So here I am again Diary. Well I did it, I told Stefan the truth and it went pretty much like I expected... sort of.

I had for most of the morning managed to avoid seeing Damon by staying in my room and getting Caroline to run interference for me and according to her it was just as well, because he was not a happy camper about the whole emotional blackmail thing I had laid on him.

Of course he didn't say that in so many words, Caroline was just well versed in drunk and brooding and a lot better at reading between the lines than Damon could have expected, even if he hadn't been to quote Care, Hammered out of his brain.

But the fact that he was drunk was now throwing my plans completely out of wack.

There was no way I was fronting up and telling him about my feelings while he was basted out of his mind. Damon was unpredictable and impulsive when he was sober a drunken Damon was just dangerous and very very single minded.

And as much as I wanted to finally get to the naked part I did not want our first time to happen in any way he could rationalize away later. Because the one thing I knew about Damon better than anyone by that point was that he was going to have a hard enough time accepting my feelings for him without us going to bed first,

That really would make me too much like Katherine, and now that I had so much more in common with her than just the men in our lives, I didn't want Damon drawing any more comparisons between us than necessary.

In the end I'd decided to send Care down to see if she could sober him up and concentrated on setting the scene for what I hoped would be the start of our lives together.

Okay Diary I suppose while I'm here I should really write about what happened between Stefan and I.

And no I'm not avoiding the Damon part I will get to that, I promise.

What I wrote earlier is pretty much true, but there were a few small differences between how I thought his reaction would go and what actually happened. And there might have been a couple of bumps in the road before we even got to the relationship part that certainly didn't help.

I'd been far too nervous and stressed to go back to sleep after my big epiphany so I decided to let Caroline get a little more shuteye and took myself downstairs to get some blood. I even successfully managed to skirt the parlor where Damon was undoubtedly doing his best to deplete the house's liquor supply. Yay for vampire stealth!

And can I just say how totally surreal the whole blood getting experience was when I was getting it for myself.

So back to the story.

I was just finishing bag number two when Stefan came into the kitchen behind me. Say what you like for vampire senses, and over the past year or so I'd heard about plenty of very descriptive and mostly disturbing applications of said senses from Damon, I still wasn't prepared for the affect that feeding all alone would have on me that first morning.

I was so wrapped up in the taste and experience of eating I didn't even hear Stefan come in until he was at my shoulder.

I got my first lesson about the predator I now was when my body reacted to his presence by (it seems that some of those vampire senses were subliminal and more than a little instinctual) grabbing him by the throat and pinning him to the wall.

Apparently you should not sneak up on a hungry vampire.

I don't know who was more shocked, him or me, but I do remember that I'd growled at him pretty loudly before I came to my senses and backed off.

At first Stefan just stood there rubbing his throat, looking at me like I'd grown an extra head or something.  
Then he was all what the hell Elena, and how much of that have you had?

It's funny in hindsight that my first reaction was to just roll my eyes and make a very rude and very Damon like noise. Of course It wasn't so funny right then because Stefan was more than a little unimpressed with my lack of levity of the situation.

It seems he'd had some idea that I should be moderating my human blood intake by supplanting a large part of it with animal blood like he'd taught Caroline to do when she'd first turned.

I'd tried to explain that actually I didn't think I was going to have to do that because, and talk about a skeptical and condescending look, so far I had experienced none of the symptoms of blood lust that Care had told me I should expect.  
At his concerned look I just shrugged and suggested that maybe it's because I was the doppelganger and was already sort of supernatural to begin with.

Sure I'd been enjoying drinking the blood from the bag and I even went so far as to admit that I had been distracted enough by the taste to not even notice his approach. But I assured him I had felt absolutely zero amount of desire to go out and find myself something fresh from the source.

And yes I(this time I had the good sense to keep the eye roll internal) understood that that could change and I really wouldn't know how I was going to react until I was around people, but that still wasn't going to change the fact that I found the idea of hunting helpless little critters far less appealing than sucking cold blood from plastic.

Stefan looked kind of shocked at that and I think I may have even hurt his feelings a little with the helpless critter comment but strangely enough I found that my being a vampire had made me a whole lot less diplomatic, or maybe I was just being a whole lot more honest. Who knows. All I knew right then was that I was done with padding the truth so it didn't upset anyone.

I was a freaking vampire and I think that I deserved a pretty big pass for at least a couple of days.

And if Stefan didn't like it well too bad.

Turns out he really didn't like it, and we came very close to having our first real fight over something that was so not what I thought we'd be fighting about.

I won't bore you with the details but it ended up with me losing my temper and telling him it was none of his business.  
And when he pointed out that the fact that as he was my boyfriend and that he cared about me it sort of made it his business, well... it went pretty much like you'd expect.

I did try to be gentle because this was after all Stefan and he deserved better than just getting dumped.

But when I tried to tell him that things were different now he totally misunderstood me and thought I was talking about my being a vampire and the fact that we had only just gotten back together.

I then tried ( I was still being all patient at that point) to explain that wasn't what I'd meant about it not being his business, it was because I had realized that too much had changed and that I didn't want us to be together anymore.

Up until then I'd never realized how single minded and blinkered Stefan could be when it came to me, but hell, the guy just wasn't getting it.

Again he thought I didn't want a relationship because of the vampire thing and went on to tell me it was only natural that I would need some time to adjust to us as a couple again, and that he understood that his actions over past few months had to have affected me, but that I had to know that the way he'd been wasn't really him, that it had just been because of the overload of people blood and Klaus's manipulations.

At that stage he tried to take me in his arms, and you know those heightened emotions that he'd talked about, well they hit a new peak.

I'd shoved him away and then I very quietly but with more determination that I thought I had in me laid it all out on the line as simply as I could.

I told him that I would always care for him but when I'd turned around to come back to Mystic Falls and him the night before it was the worse decision I'd ever made.  
And no it had nothing to do with the fact that if I hadn't the accident might not of happened, that it had everything to do with Damon and the way I felt about him.

I chocked the words out, partly because I could see the dawning sorrow in his eyes and because just thinking about how close I'd come to losing Damon made my throat close up with fear.

I told him what was really in my heart.

I Said, I Love him Stefan, I'm in love with him and if he can forgive me I'm going to show him just how much for the rest of whatever time I have. Whether it was a week or eternity. The words were blunt but they were the truth and I was done lying.

I went on to tell him how sorry I was to hurt him, that Damon made me feel things that I'd been scared to face when I was just a girl with normal dreams. And that a part of that was my fear of becoming what I now was, because,(God I'd felt so bad for him as I saw him stagger back at my words) I'd known deep down inside that if I'd really let myself love Damon it would have consumed me, and that I'd known on some level that one human life would not have been enough time for me, not with him.

Stefan's gaze had dropped away from mine at my last admittance but as he slumped back on to one of the kitchen stools he'd raised his eyes and met mine again.  
There was pain in his expression but no real surprise and he'd pretty much confirmed what I was seeing with his next words.

He'd told me that on some level he'd known since the night that we'd opened the tomb that there was a connection between Damon and I, but it was the look on my face when he'd told me that Damon had been bitten by Tyler that had made it really hit home for him.

He admitted part of the reason he'd gone with Klaus so willingly was because even then he'd known what was coming. And that the reason that he didn't fight it harder was because part of him felt that he'd owed Damon a chance at being happy, mostly, he admitted, for his part in Damon's turning, but also because of the whole Katherine affair.

His next words reminded me why I had once believed he was the one for me. They reminded me he was a good man who truly loved his brother and only wanted him to finally be happy.

He'd wished us the best and told me to be happy with each other and that he'd seen the Damon who loved me and he'd recognized in him the brother that Stefan had mourned the loss of all these years. He took my hands in his, kissed me on the cheek and thanked me for bringing back his big brother.

Then smiling sadly he told me that he was going to leave town for a little while to give us some space to just be a couple. And that I was to tell Damon that he was glad that Damon had someone to love him as much as I did. Then he turned and left the kitchen without looking back.


	7. Chapter 7

So Diary tonight's the night. By this time tomorrow I'm either going to be the happiest little vamp in the world or the sorriest girl in Mystic Falls.

That's not to say I'm going to give up if things don't work out the way I plan. If he gets all stubborn and stupid I'll just have to out stubborn him. Because there is no way I'm spending my eternity as a vampire without him.

Now that I know what I want I know that waking up for even another day without Damon wrapped around me is just not an acceptable scenario.

I have put him through so much in the last year that all I want to do is spend every day I have of what I hope is going to be a very long life showing him just how much I love him. I want him to know that it's him I've chosen and that it will always be him that I choose for as long as he wants' me.

I want to erase every stupid idiot thing I've ever said to push him away, and most of all I want to see that glorious light that is his love back in his eyes.

I shudder when I remember the deadness in those eyes only this morning and can only hope that he hasn't flipped his switch in such a way that I won't be able to get through to him.

Because diary, that is my worst nightmare, I'm scared that I've broken the part of him that loved me. That none of my words or actions will bring him back from that place he's gone to protect what's left of his heart. And if that's happened I'm not sure what I'll do.

All joking about his stubbornness aside I wonder if I even have the right to force him to listen to me after all that I've done to make him believe It would never be him that I love. Would it be kinder to let him go, to let him leave this town that's done him nothing but harm. So that maybe somewhere, sometime, he could find someone that would choose him first, that would cherish him the way he deserves.

God please don't let it come to that.

So, Care just came back a minute ago and she's informed me that Damon is in his room taking a shower.  
I've got everything I need so I guess it's time to put my plan in to action. I just hope it works.

Hey Diary, this might be the last time I write in you for a while so I guess I better be thorough, especially with this entry.

So I did like I planned, I went to Damon's room and waited for him to get out of the shower.

I'd borrowed Cares white leather pants and was wearing a silver and white scoop neck sweater that Jenna had brought me not long before she died. White ankle boots completed the outfit, one that I'd made sure that I'd never once worn in either Stefan or Damon's presence.

I know the symbolism of the white thing might have been a little cheesy but I wanted Damon to understand that this wasn't about seduction. And Yeah okay I admit I also deliberately chose the type of clothing, color and style, that Katherine wouldn't be caught, pardon the pun, dead in.

The only other things I carried with me were the ring box he'd given me earlier and a plain blue folder.

Sitting nervously on the end of his bed waiting for him to get out of the shower I did my best to compose myself while I went over what I wanted to say in my head.  
It was quite possibly the longest ten minutes of my life.

He didn't realize I was there when he first came out of the bathroom. He was towelling his hair and humming something off key, the humming should have given me hope for his mood being good or at least improved, but unfortunately I recognised the tune.

Jar of hearts is not a reassuring song in any way, and the fact that Damon was even humming something from the current decade told me it was gonna be bad.

Oh well I suppose it could be worse, it could be an eighty's power ballad.

I remember him getting spectacularly drunk after the tomb was first opened and listening to Patrick Swayze's She's like the wind thirty seven times. Stefan had to steal the fuse for the main breaker in the end.  
While I was distracted by the variances in Damon's ,shall

we say eclectic taste in music, the vampire in question finally finished towelling his hair and noticed my presence.

And I just want to say Diary, wet towel clad Damon, complete with damp ruffled hair and a startled look... can I just say Yum.

Trust Damon to test my no seduction resolve straight off the bat. Then again... I thought as I'd eyed him speculatively. If my plan went the way I wanted it too I was pretty sure that I wouldn't need to do any seducing.

At that point I realized that he was staring at me with his eyebrow quirked questioningly and I realized I might have missed something.

Smiling slowly I remember thinking... Game on Elena.

The next words that came out of my mouth must have really shocked him, because he failed to come up with even one of his usual fast and snarky comeback's. Mind you it's not every day that I tell Damon the absolute truth about what I'm thinking, so my, Sorry I was distracted by the half naked goodness, would you like to start again, probably had even him pausing to think.

He'd opened his mouth to say something a moment later, but just as he was about to speak his brows drew together in suspicion and he stepped closer.

Now normally I would have been pleased by his sudden need to be closer to me, especially considering our last encounter, but any warmth I might have felt was immediately dispelled when he cocked his head and with a way too sexy smirk said Katherine's name.

He looked more than a little confused and wary when I went on to disabuse him of that notion straight off, and with hand gestures.

I told him I thought he'd have worked out how to tell us apart by now and that his getting that up close and personal if he thought I was Katherine better be because he planned to kill her.

His eyebrows practically levitated off his face at that, but my next words had him taking a step back and practically tripping over his own feet.

Admittedly I might have been a tad overzealous with my whole, and I better not find her skanky butt anywhere near you or she might just find out what the new vampire me was capable of. I told him she might be older than dirt and the queen of mean but if she ever showed her face around here again I was going to make it very plain that one Damon Salvatore was off limits.

After he'd righted his balance, both his physical and mental and thrown me a glare that could of scorched paint. He seemed to decide against dragging his questions out and cut to the chase because his words were very straight forward and completely lacking in any sexual innuendo whatsoever.

He asked me why I was in his room and what I wanted. Then he informed me that i should hurry it up so he could get to the No part and resume his regularly scheduled drinking until passing out portion of his day. The words were glib but the tone and expression wasn't, instead he just looked tired, and I felt a pang somewhere in the region of my heart knowing I was the reason for it.

It was at that point that I decided I'd had enough with deferred gratification and playing coy, Damon just sounded so defeated that I blurted the first thing that I could think of.

My, Stefan and I broke up, might not have been what he was expecting but at least it had the advantage of getting his full and focused attention.

Though his Do you want me to go stake him for you was not exactly what I'd hoped for. I was even less impressed with his attempted comfort in the form of, Don't worry I'm sure the two of you will kiss and make up as soon as he pulls that enormous stick out of his ass. Didn't take the whole let's go eat fluffy puppies together and ride off into the sunset thing well, did ya, he added slyly.

Ah! and the snark was back.

And yes at that point I'll admit I was doing my best to suppress a grin at the fact he knew me so well, but still, I was trying to be serious and letting him be flippant wasn't going to get us together.

I admitted that yes Stefan had expected me to eat animal blood, and he'd just nodded smugly and then I told him that, no, that wasn't the reason that we'd broken up. At his inquiring look I took a deep breath and told him the  
truth.

I confessed that we'd broken up because I'd realized that even though I loved Stefan I wasn't in love with him, that I was in love him, Damon, and that I'd realized that I'd made the wrong choice the night I'd drowned. I said that I'd once told him that it was Stefan and that it would always be Stefan but I knew now that I'd said those words as a defense against the way, he, Damon made me feel. I told him everything that had gone through my head in the last twenty four hours and when I was finished I reached for his hand, met his stunned blue eyes, and told him that I was choosing him and I would always choose him if he let me.

He'd started shaking his head before I was halfway finished and when he pulled his hand from mine and slumped back on to his bed my heart sank.

The expression on his face was troubled and his eyes were sad as they met mine, and I knew then that this was going to be harder than I thought.

He sighed out my name as his gaze dropped, and he shook his head again even as he started to speak.

He told me that he'd been half expecting some big emotional breakup between Stefan and I, that it was to be expected now that my emotions were heightened, but he promised if I just took a beat and let everything settle I would realize that It was still all about Stefan.

Then he said that what I thought I felt for him was just my new senses overreacting to the thought of losing another person from my life and that if it helped he would give me his word right there and then not to go anywhere until I was as close to normal as I was likely to get. He even smirked and joked that knowing me and my issues it could be years before he actually left.

Then diary, he reached for both my hands Squeezed them gently and apologized for the compulsion and the threatening to leave and then assured me that he'd stay around even after Stefan and I were back together, and he promised that when he did eventually go he'd only be a phone call away.

He was being so sweet and such and enormous dick all at the same time that I didn't know whether to kiss or slap him, so in the end I went for both.

First I slapped him, then I kissed him and then I slapped him again, just in case he'd missed it the first time.

The look on his face was priceless, I have never in all the time I've known Damon Salvatore seen him at such a loss. He looked stunned and totally clueless, so of course I took pity on him.

I pulled away from his body and reached for the folder I'd brought with me and I dropped it into his lap and waited.

Thoroughly confused by now, and yes a little pissed truth be told, he stared at it blankly and then looked back up at me. What is it he asked. I just rolled my eyes and told him that it wasn't gonna bite and that he should open it and see for himself.

Handling it like it might burst into flames he flipped it open and then stared at the contents blankly.

Well I urged impatiently, go on, open it properly I instructed when he just sat staring at what I had gone to great expense to procure.

Scowling he did as I asked and a moment later his eyes flew up to meet mine in shock.

Elena why are you giving me two tickets to Paris he asked. The guarded look in his eyes made me want to cry but I was determined to get through this without getting all weepy.

Damon I said, You are an Idiot. But I love you anyway. I smiled and shifted into his personal space and continued.  
They're for us of course. Do you really think I was going to let you run off to Paris without me. The moment you told me that you were going to leave me was the worst moment of my entire life and I'm sorry it took something like that to make me realize how stupid I've been.

I told him that I had used the money I'd been saving for college to pay for the trip because I'd realized that being with him wherever he wanted to go was the important thing.

Then I reached down and kissed him the way I'd wanted to every night since the last time. And thank God this time he kissed me back.

When we eventually came up for air (now thankfully redundant)I was more than a little dazed and truthfully so turned on I couldn't see straight. But I was determined, before this went any further to have the words and his belief.

So pulling the ring box he'd given me out of my pocket I looked him in the eye and said.

Okay, let's try it again. I love you Damon Salvatore, I'm in love with you and only you and I'm choosing you today and for the rest of our lives.  
Opening the box I took the ring out and handed it to him. Do you believe me now, I asked.

And Diary, he smiled, that open honest natural one that very few people have ever seen, and just before he kissed me again he put that ring on my finger, glanced up at me from under those ridiculous lashes of his and said...

Elena I love you too, and it's about damn time.

The End.

* * *

**Notes:**

So that's it. Hope you enjoyed. Originally when I wrote this it was going to be much steamier but my 13 year old wanted to read it so I canned the smut.  
If you want smut you will have to go read my other fic having Faith. Starts with Damon and OFC but will hopefully end up with Delena.


End file.
